The importance of Advertising

Making Pregnancy Medical centers known

Vision for Life - Pittsburgh advertises for pro-life pregnancy medical centers, because helping women choose life has been shown historically, and currently, to be the most important factor in reducing abortion numbers.

In the last half of the 19th Century, the abortion rate was actually almost double today’s rate; if we had the rate of the 1860s, we would have about 1.9 millionabortions, instead of about 1 million a year (using calculations based on the work of Marvin Olasky, Abortion Rites: A Social History of Abortion in America, pp. 292-3).

Why did the abortion numbers fall at the end of the 19th Century? Maternity homes! In the 1890s in New York City, there were 20 maternity homes; the largest had 1,042 beds! This was the story everywhere in America. Everyone knew where these homes were, and abortion numbers fell towards the end of the century and on into the 20th Century.

Olasky writes, "Overall, as pro-lifers compassionately aided women at risk, the abortion rate declined dramatically from 1860 to 1910 and stayed relatively low until the cultural revolution of the 1960s sent the numbers soaring again. Pro-life leaders during the 1860–1960 century of decrease understood that there never would be “total abolition of the practice.” Realizing that this is a fallen world, they appreciated the educational impact of anti-abortion laws but did not expect much in the way of enforcement: Instead, they concentrated on ways to provide women with compassionate alternatives to abortion. They were not laid low by a sense of failure when, despite their efforts, many unborn children died. They rejoiced that so many were saved."​The same Christian care for women in need is having its effect today: abortion numbers started falling in 1991, and are still falling every year. It hasn't been a change in public opinion that did it: opinion polls have been unchanged since the 1970s, with 20 to 25 percent pro-life or pro-choice, and about 50 to 60 percent in the middle, with conflicting views and no desire to think about the issue.

As single parenthood lost its shame in the 20th Century, women didn’t need to go into a residence, and maternity homes pretty well disappeared, but something appeared in their place: pregnancy help centers. These help centers increased sharply in number in the mid 1980s and a few years later abortion numbers started to decline.

What’s the difference between the late 19th Century and today? The pregnancy help centers are not as prominent as those big maternity homes where women lived; perhaps you don't know where to find one, or if you asked your neighbors, they wouldn’t have a clue.

Advertising makes the pregnancy medical centers prominent.​

Do you know the location of any pregnancy help center in Pittsburgh? *

​So why don’t the centers themselves advertise? They do, but not as much as they might. It’s easier to raise money for a building, for an ultrasound machine, for a position at a pregnancy help center, than it is for something so ephemeral as advertising

So we are something like the advertising department for the pregnancy medical centers, because we know that it makes a difference. And we can tell you how it makes a difference, and with your support, together we can make these centers prominent in the Pittsburgh area, and save more lives.